


Priorities

by 2old4this4real



Category: DCU, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:04:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2old4this4real/pseuds/2old4this4real
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I'll have you know that I am a perfectly accomplished liar.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Priorities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/gifts).



> Harvey is the Harvey Dent from Teland’s Boarding School series, where Harvey and Bruce are prep-school roommates in the mid 1970’s. The series features pre-Batman Bruce and pre-crazy Harvey, amongst others.   
> http://archiveofourown.org/series/83446

Harvey rounded the corner from the quad into the residence hall. Practice had been good. The team was looking strong, but probably wouldn't make it past Sectionals, which was fine. Regionals, not to mention Nationals conflicted with exams. As much as listing a championship win would look good on his resume, he *needed* his grades if he was going to make Harvard Law. Eyes on the prize, and all that. He had plenty of time to scrub the grass out of his uniform before Bruce got back to the room. He hoped he had plenty of time. He hated seeing the brittle look in Bruce's eyes when he saw that, yet again, Harvey had taken a particularly rough turfing.

(“Oh. Harv, you're... are you alright?”

“It's fine, big guy. You play the game, you take the hits sometimes.”

“It's *baseball*, Harv. There aren't supposed to be hits.”

“Just leave it, Bruce. It's *fine*.)

He could take hits, like a champ, even. Not that he wanted to get into that with Bruce. He *especially* didn't want to get into that with Bruce. Preoccupied, he bowled into the girl lurking just inside the doorway. Tiny little thing that she was, he would have dumped her sprawling on the floor if she hadn't clutched his arm, dragging him a couple of stumbling steps further into the entry. 

“Woah! Excuse me, darlin'. Are you lost? Visiting someone? Visitors are supposed to check in with Admin. What's a pretty little mouse like you doing hanging around alone in the boys' hall?”

She jerked her arm out of his grip and straightened her sweater and skirt with a huff. He didn't recognize the logo on her sweater. None of the local girls' academies had a quartered shield with, were those flying pigs? Huh. Formal sweater, striped tie, pleated skirt, knees socks, and sturdy oxfords; definitely a private school uniform. An intimidatingly large wooden pick fell out of the messy chignon twisted at the back of her neck, releasing a glorious chestnut puff of hair. She grabbed for it as it fell and missed. Harvey snagged it out of the air and presented it in a sweep of lighthearted mockery of courtly courtesy. 

“Your dagger, mi'lady. Doesth thou require...”

She snatched it back. “Oh god, don't touch that!”

“I... sorry? Next time I'll let it hit the floor and you can pick it up yourself,” he sulked with the anger of spurned good intentions.

“No, I'm sorry. I'm... far away from home and,” She gestured with the stick, “It's important to me… um, personal.” She looked uncomfortable. “I don't like other people touching it.” 

“Oookay. No touching the hair pick. Go'cha.” He smiled charmingly, as disarmingly a smile as he had in his repertoire. Big brown eye blinked at him in surprise. She shot a look to the stick in her hand and back to his face, like she was trying to decide if he was serious. 

“Yes. I'd appreciate that. So, you're a mu-um-American, are you?”

“Considering we're in Mu-Umerica, that's a safe bet.” He winked. “You sound like a Brit. Are you in the States for school? I don't recognize your colors, but a school uniform is a school uniform, yeah?” 

“School uniforms are surprisingly consistent across geography and... um... time.” She eyed his floppy haircut and flat-bottomed canvas athletic shoes. She took a deep breath, weighing him like his uncle weighed the odds at the track. “I'm not here for school.” She frowned at a little stone figurine laying on her palm, a snake biting its tail. “I'm not sure how I got here. I mean, I know *how*, but I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be here. At least, I don't think I was supposed to end up here *now* anyway.” She looked up at him pleadingly. He didn't know what she was asking for. He was pretty sure that she didn't know either. 

Even with a hand full of sweaty practice gear, he wasn't going to turn away a pretty lost girl in a school uniform. “We should go to the Admin Office and see about calling your folks?” She didn't look less anxious. Remembering the expression on Mrs. Gratt's face the last time he walked into her office, he said, “It might be better if we found someone else to go with you.” Bruce would fall over his feet to play escort to a damsel and the dean's secretary would make fewer rude assumptions than if Harvey-the-scholarship-boy showed up with an unchaperoned girl. He held out his elbow towards her and said, “My roommate is just the guy you need. Let's go back to my room to talk and we'll see what we can figure out, yeah?”

She looked at him suspiciously, eyeing his canted arm. “I hardly think it's appropriate for me to follow a strange boy back to his room. Especially considering that no one knows where I am.” She broke off and looked at him in panic, “And I really shouldn't have said that.”

He tipped his head back and laughed, bumping her shoulder with his elbow. “No, you really shouldn't have. It's a good thing that you fell in with one of the good guys or you'd be in trouble, little mouse.”

She looked at him narrowly, “Why do you keep calling me a mouse?”

“Well, you're tiny, cute ... fluffy.” She wasn't frowning less. “And you haven't given me a better name to call you.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.” She looked surprised again, like she expected him to know who she was. “You haven't introduced yourself either. I'm Hermione Granger, a student at Hogwarts School of Wi*cough*, uh, Academics in Scotland. 

“Herm... Uh huh, School of Academics? Is that seriously what you're going with? I've heard a lot of lies and that is one of the clumsiest I've had the pleasure to be insulted with.” He raised both eyebrows in challenge. 

“I'll have you know that I am a perfectly accomplished liar.” Realizing what she said, she flushed. “I mean, I don't make a habit of lying, but I am very capable.”

Harvey tossed his hair and laughed again, good-naturedly, “I just bet you are. Let's try this again.” He stuck out his hand pugnaciously, “My name is Harvey Dent. I attend this fine institution of Exeter, living in this very dorm in which we are standing.” She tucked the stone snake into her pocket, switched the stick to her other hand, and shook his offered hand. “Our conversation has been the high point of my day, but if we stand in the hallway much longer, we're going to attract a crowd. I don't know how familiar you are with being a girl alone in a crowd of boys at an all-boys school, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're feeling very friendly.” 

“All-boys school? Girls aren't allowed to attend? *Human* girls?”

Harvey blinked, nonplussed, “Well yeah, human girls. What other kind of girls would we be talking about? Aaaaaliens? If you're that enthusiastic about science fiction, you and my roommate will get along great. Of course, you could just be off your rocker, in which case, I'd rather not introduce you to Bruce.”

“Right. Of course. Elite American schools pre-1980, exclusively for boys, as I should have known by the attractive blazing jacket.” Hermione nodded briskly. “Based on your accent, I'll wager, um, upper East Coast? At least I'm not too far from Salem U, distance-wise anyway.”

And that sounded like another basket of complete crazy. Harvey had to focus on the most pertinent issue. “You think the blazer is attractive?”

“Well, no.” Hermione smiled sheepishly, “I don't think *anyone* finds blazing, er, blazers attractive.”

Harvey clutched his chest in faux offense. “You come into my school, into my country, and insult my blazer. You attack the very heart of our educational tradition, then you don't have the courtesy to give me your name?”

“But I did... Oh fine. Hello Harvey Dent. My name is Hermione,” She signs with the annoyance only felt by someone with a frequently mangled name, “Her-MYO-nee Granger. I'm a student, um...”

“Uh huh, Hermione, I'll buy. Hog-high School of Academics, not so much, but we can leave it for now.” He again held out his elbow at a jaunty angle, as a clatter voices and footsteps echoed from the other end of the hallway. She shot a worried look down the hall and quickly slipped her hand under his arm, following him up the stairs away from the noise. Her hand was small, not particularly fine boned, and brown; slightly darker than his after a summer working construction. If it wasn't for her uniform, diction, and aggressively bourgeois grooming, he'd guess that she was very much the *wrong sort* of girl who would be very sorry to get caught alone in the boys' dorm at Exeter. 

Mouth pinched like she was guessing some of his thoughts, she said sharply, “I hope you don't think that because I've agreed to go to your room, I'll make an easy target for nonsense.” The variety of women Harvey had met and, generally, enjoyed was diverse, but Hermione was the most unapologetically officious. He was glad to have met her, even though she was leaving soon, clearly lying through her teeth, and would likely not be back.

“There are marks, and then there are *marks*. I don't think you're either kind, little mouse.” Opening the door to his room, he stepped back to let her walk in first. Bruce would take her to call her family. Bruce could take the risk to help; the risk that Harvey couldn't afford to take. If that didn't work, Bruce could always call his creepy valet who seemed be able to make any mess disappear.


End file.
